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Change Your Life! |
Lazio literally with a ‘stiff upper lip’ |
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June 28, 2000
ALBANY, New York (AP) - Rep. Rick Lazio is having teething problems as he tries to mount a statewide Senate campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton with less than six months until the election.
The first stumble came when Lazio went face-first into the pavement while shaking hands at a Memorial Day parade. His stitched-up fat lip came just in time for the state Republican convention with its horde of television cameras and a subsequent bus trip across the state.
Lazio, presenting himself as a real New Yorker as opposed to newcomer Clinton, left the convention on a customized bus with an Alabama license plate. The tags on his "Made in New York" T-shirts read "Assembled in Mexico."
But more substantive problems are concerning some top New York Republicans who believe the Long Island congressman can't afford mistakes that can hurt polling numbers and fund raising in what is expected to be a close race.
Their concern stems from a recent series of what his aides prefer to call glitches and growing pains.
On June 15, the House of Representatives voted on legislation to create a huge home heating oil reserve, an idea supported by both Clinton and Lazio. But Lazio missed the vote, after catching a flight from Washington back to New York to maintain a campaign schedule for the following morning. The measure lost, 195-193.
Clinton wasted no time in suggesting that if Lazio had stayed in Washington he likely could have persuaded at least one fellow Republican to help him out and win approval for the measure.
"I think it's really a shame that when we needed a vote for the Northeast strategic oil reserve, he was missing in action," she said.
On Monday in a Buffalo suburb, Lazio accused the Clinton administration of not doing enough to fight high gasoline prices and urged the first lady to "get out of the motorcade (and) check the prices at the pump."
But last week, when congressional Republicans arranged a starring role for Lazio to at a Washington news conference on the same topic, he never showed up. He was doing an interview with a reporter. |